On the final night of swimming & para swimming at this year’s Commonwealth Games, it certainly rose to the occasion of being dubbed a big night for Team NI! Highlighted by Daniel Wiffen’s exceptional silver medal in the 1500m Freestyle & Ellie McCartney’s brilliant bronze in the 200m Breaststroke, our Northern Irish athletes should be very proud of everything they have achieved in the pool.
In the second event of the final’s session, it wasn’t long before we got to see Ellie make a splash in the pool tonight. Swimming out of lane 7 in the final – 3 lanes over from Angharad Evans (SCO) – the volume in Tollcross lifted significantly! Swimming a very sensible and relaxed race, Ellie was 5th to 50m (32.67), 5th to 100m (1:09.56) and 6th to 150m (1:46.89). However, once she hit the wall at 150m, she knew a big last 50m was required to catch the field. Coming home very strong in her race, McCartney crept up the field and stole the bronze medal in a time of 2:24.73, just 0.3 seconds behind Kaylene Corbett (RSA). With just under 2 hours until she raced again in the Women’s 4x100m Medley Relay, Ellie needed to reset and focus on delivering for the team with a big breaststroke split.
Following on from the ecstasy in the race before, Jack McMillan dived into the 200m Freestyle. Taking out the race exceptionally fast was the Aussie Kai Taylor, and McMillan, swimming in the lane beside Taylor, went along at similar pace. Turning 2nd at 100m and 150m, the race was on for McMillan. With a very strong backend from James Guy (ENG) and Matthew Richards (WAL) – both teammates of Jack’s in Aquatics GB – it was not to be for Jack as the closing speed was too much. McMillan came into the wall clocking 1:46.29, placing him 6th in the final. In a similar situation to Ellie McCartney, Jack had just under two hours to reset and refocus for the Men’s Medley Relay at the end of the session.
Dan Wiffen. Wiffen and Short (AUS) out together in the first 200m ahead of Galea (AUS) & Goedemans (AUS). The two were still battling it out going stroke for stroke all the way through 700m, with Benjamin Goedemans lurking suspiciously close behind. At 800m, Sam Short lifted the intensity of the stroke rate to a strong gallop through the water, separating him and Daniel by a body-length. At 1000m, the gap extended to about 2 seconds between Short & Wiffen as Short pushes on. With 300m to go in the 1500m race, Daniel started to lift the intensity up to stretch his lead further away from Goedemans and try to catch Short. The last two laps of the pool, Daniel turned on the legs to clamber at Short, but it was too much of an ask. Daniel flew home on the last lap to touch in a time of 14:40.70 – securing him the silver medal and taking tonight’s tally to two.
In the penultimate race of the night, the Women’s 4x100m Medley Relay took to the water, with Ellie McCartney joining the lineup for the session. The team responded with a superb swim, finishing 7th overall in a time of 4:05.85, which was a significant improvement of over eight seconds on their heat swim of 4:14.49.
The final event of the entire competition, the Men’s 4x100m Medley Relay, saw the team race once again alongside Canada. They delivered a brilliant swim, shaving four seconds off their heat time of 3:41.06 to clock 3:37.58, securing 6th place across the Commonwealth.
It was the perfect way to bring the curtain down on a fantastic week of swimming at Tollcross International Swimming Centre. Attention now turns to the European Aquatics Championships (50m) in Paris, just under two weeks away.